Back rear speaker placement problem-- need help ASAP!! (1 Viewer)

[Dan Hitchman]

I'm helping a neighbor buy and install a 7.1 surround home theater system in her finished basement.
Here's the problem-- it's only ~10.5 ft. wide. On the rear wall there is a water heater/furnace closet that sticks out into the room, making for mis-matched wall lengths. (facing the front)-- 24.2 ft. (right wall); 27.5 ft. (left wall). Oh, and since this room measurement is rarely given, I'll say the height is 7.3 ft. (because of a suspended ceiling with metal grid and foam tiles).
I have one of two options open:
1) Place only a single back rear speaker on a wall stud (facing the rear of the room) on the far right hand side of the water heater/furnace closet frame. Not what my neighbor wants because it's very hard to break up a pair of speakers at a dealer, and the Widescreen 7.1 mode on the Denon AVR-3802 can't be used to its full effect (plus, if a real 7.1 discrete format comes out in the future she'll only have the one rear speaker).
2)Spread the back rear speakers out ~10 ft. One on each extreme corner of the back of the room. With the mis-matched room lengths, one will be ~3 ft. back from the other one. However, in the manual, it looks like from perusing the on-line PDF file the Denon 3802 will allow separate time delay and volume settings for each separate back rear speaker (unless the manual is wrong-- won't be the first time!).
Would going with option #2 ruin the back surround effect for DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 and DD EX movies since the speakers would be spread apart ~10 ft.-- is that too far?
Your help would be most appreciated, especially those that have installed 6.1/7.1 systems in their own homes.
Thanks!
Dan
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[Andrea W]

I don't really have an answer, but concerning #1, if you can't break up a pair of speakers, you can mount both of them next to each other. That's what I ended up doing because I couldn't get my dealer to break up a pair.
You can see a picture Link Removed

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Thanks Andrea!
Did you experient with having the two rear speakers spread farther apart as a full "7.1" set up and come to the conclusion it sounded better with just a 6.1 configuration in your room?
What are your room dimensions?
Dan
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Stop HDCP and 5C-- Your rights are at risk!

 

[Wes]

If it was me I would run the two rear speakers about within 1-3ft of each other in the center if posible. I would not spread them out too far or your EX will blent into the surround L/R and might get lost!
Wes

 

[Andrea W]

Dan,
Actually, I'm embarrased to say that we left the speaker placement up to the installer. I had originally planned to just buy one speaker for the rear center. And I knew I wanted a Boston Acoustics, white speaker (exterior), to match my other surrounds. My HT dealer couldn't break up a pair, so I ended up buying a better pair to replace my surrounds and then taking the old surrounds and using both of them as the center rear. The installer did the work and placed the speakers. They sound incredible (in the 6.1 configuration), so I have no complaints.
I'm not sure of the room dimensions, but my kitchen and den are one big great room. The rears are about 4 to 5 feet behind my couch and right on the phantom border (where the carpet stops and the tile begins) between the kitchen and den.
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http://darius.mobius-soft.com/~andrea/ht/